BLOG

Last September 2016 the DSM Girl Gang asked the city of Des Moines to put aside any discomfort with female periods and donate an unprecedented number of tampons and pads to benefit local shelters and services.

Last August we learned that many women lack access to female care goods, as local shelters and women’s organizations are in constant need when it comes to these items. The average woman will utilize over 250 tampons and/or pads each year, and most organizations do not receive enough donations to provide basic female care items to their clients. Within hours of sharing these daunting facts in the DSM Girl Gang community Facebook group, the idea of organizing a donation drive was formed.

With less than a week to plan, our team declared the month of September “Tampon Month” and kicked off our first donation drive, Red Alert. We set a lofty goal to collect at least 25,000 items and donate to six local organizations. With the assistance of DMARC and many local businesses we were able to provide over 30 drop off locations to collect hundreds of physical donations. Our team also accepted monetary donations via Paypal, Square Cash, and Venmo, which resulted in over $2,000 received.

Through this grassroots effort, our inaugural Red Alert drive collected over 51,000 items, and monetary donations equated to over 20,000 items purchased. Every penny collected went directly to the purchase of tampons or pads for the drive. Our donations helped approximately 200 women for one year each.

Although they received thousands of tampons and pads through the Red Alert drive, our beneficiaries reported that those donations were so badly needed that they depleted quickly. The Des Moines Area Religious Council serves over 40,000 clients across Iowa and reported that their supply of over 17,000 tampons and pads was gone in just over one month.

Because these items are still not often donated, we are determined to double our total donations from last year and plan to collect over 100,000 items this September! We are so thrilled to bring this drive back to the community in 2017, and hope you will join us this year.